[asia-apec 1258] Re: patents/property

[Devinder Sharma]

The article pasted below is an anlysis on the developed country initiative
to thwart Farmers Rights. I hope you will find it useful.

Devinder Sharma
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Wanted, A New Definition of Farmers

By Devinder Sharma

If you are educated, wear a shirt and a pair of trousers and cultivate crops
with the help of a tractor, the chances are that you may not be called a
farmer. Unless you are attired in a dirty "dhoti-kurta", wear soiled shoes
or "chappals" and still perform subsistence farming with a bullock-drawn
wooden plough, you do not qualify to be a farmer. At least, that is what the
United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea are insisting.

Such is the underlying contempt for the farming communities of the
developing world that the industrialised countries have refused to talk in
favour of farmers. In fact, backed by the richest trading block, the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the US has
been continuously making every possible effort to thwart the developing
countries attempt to accord recognition to Farmers$B(B Rights -- an expression
of the contribution of farming communities to their innovative capacity as
breeders, and custodian of the traditional knowledge and biological
resources.

But why protect the rights of farmers ? Because, as the Canadian Seed Trade
Association pointed out in its booklet, Seeds for a Hungry World: $(C(BIt
borders on fantasy to believe the world$B(Bs first farmers knew they were
improving the value of species for mankind.$(D(B The first people who decided to
plant one kind of seed in  preference to another did so because they had
observed something -- perhaps better fruits or more grains per spike -- and
wanted similar or better results the next season. Nonetheless, these early
farmers were the forerunners of today$B(Bs plant breeders. And as The Economist
suggested way back in 1954, $(C(BThe real experts in plant breeding are those
millions of human beings who have inherited green fingers down through the
centuries.$(D(B

The debate, therefore, revolved around the definition of a farmer,
justifying the need to bring in Farmers$B(B Rights, which led to the collapse
of the fifth extraordinary session of Commission on Genetic Resources for
Food and Agriculture, at Rome in June 1998. And yet, two significant
developments emerged from the politically surcharged deliberations that
continued for five days. First, India continued to lead the developing
countries in protecting the rights of its farming communities in the face of
a volte face being aggressively pursued by the rich trading block. Secondly,
the European Union, which had so far resisted the developing countries stand
on providing adequate protection and privileges to the farming community,
preferred to withdraw support from the anti-farmer lobby.

While the developed countries were keen that the gene rich countries of the
South facilitate the access to plant germplasm, they refused to adhere to
the accompanying principles enshrined in the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD). Accordingly, the countries which use the plant resources
from the developing world have to assure that the benefits accruing from the
use of the germplasm is equitably shared with the communities which
preserved and conserved the biological resources over centuries. This has to
be accomplished by transfer of technology and by setting up of an
international fund to support farmers$B(B efforts to protect plant
biodiversity.

Notwithstanding the defiant stand of the developing countries, the five
foodgrain exporting countries, which stand isolated, are determined not to
allow any move that strengthens the rights of the farming communities and
thereby weakens the commercial interests of the seed and biotechnology
industry. Knowing well that Farmers$B(B Rights are not compatible with the
intellectual property rights system based on private monopoly control, these
countries have waged an undeclared war that aims at eliminating any and all
kinds of privileges for millions of resource-poor farmers. Their stand is
very clear : the farmers who protected the plant biodiversity are not the
modern farmers and hence the benefits should go to only those who are still
engaged in subsistence and traditional farming systems. The issue has still
not been resolved.

Ostensibly, at the heart of the controversy is the issue of Farmers$B(B
ights  -- the collective right of the farmers to their resources and
knowledge. It not only provides the farmers the right to benefit from the
biological resources and related indigenous knowledge, their right to save,
exchange and improve seeds also becomes inalienable. Since these rights will
cut into the profits of the multinational seed and biotechnology industry,
the developed countries have relentlessly been campaigning against its
imposition. More so, because many of these countries have fewer farmers left
and so have little interest in protecting them. For instance, with the
number of farmers dwindling over the years, the US has decided not to count
the number of farmers in the next population census. In other words, farmer
as a community will soon become extinct in America.

Working all along towards the derecognition of Farmers$B(B Rights, the US had
not allowed international deliberations to proceed beyond treating Farmers$B(B
Rights as a $(C(Bconcept$(D(B. At the fourth Technical Conference on Plant Genetic
Resources for Food and Agriculture, held at Leipzig in Germany in June 1966,
the US had blocked any move towards developing Farmers$B(B Rights. A few months
later, at the technical advisory committee of the CBD, which met at Montreal
in September 1966, it did not allow a conclusion to be arrived at on the
vexed issue of Farmers$B(B Rights in the light of the discussion around genetic
erosion in agriculture. All that the conference agreed to, thanks to the
efforts of the US lobby, was to allow presentation of a paper at the
November 1966 Buenos Aires meeting $(C(Breflecting the diverse views and
suggestions$(D(B.

The OECD has time and again reiterated that interpretation of the trade
agreement by any other forum than WTO is out of question. And WTO does not
recognise Farmers$B(B Rights. In other words, having lost its farming society,
the west is keen to destroy the strong foundations of sustainable
agriculture and crop husbandry in the developing countries. But given the
political mayhem that prevails in India, the powers that be are not even
remotely concerned at safeguarding and protecting the Indian farmers from an
international onslaught that renders the farming society vulnerable to
unbridled exploitation. #


(Devinder Sharma is a New Delhi-based food and trade policy analyst. Among
his recent works include two books: "GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair" and "In
The Famine Trap")

Address: Post Box # 4, New Delhi-110 024, India.